Erdoğan’s former speechwriter: Call for Gülen’s return was tactical move


Date posted: August 26, 2016

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s former speechwriter and current Justice and Development Party (AK Party) deputy Aydın Ünal wrote on Thursday that Erdoğan has never liked Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen and that his call for Gülen to return to Turkey in 2012 was a political maneuver.

The admission came in Ünal’s Thursday column in pro-government daily Yeni Şafak in response to criticism that Erdoğan and his party had supported the grassroots social and educational movement inspired by the teachings of Turkish Islamic scholar Gülen.

“Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Necmettin Erbakan [former prime minister and leader of the political Islamist movement in Turkey] and the political movement that led to the AK Party’s birth have never liked Fethullah Gülen and never were in harmony with him,” Ünal wrote, a fact that is known to observers of religious movements in the country. Ünal, however, added that Erdoğan never trusted Gülen, either.

However, Erdoğan attended the 2012 Turkish Olympiads, the flagship event of the Gülen movement, and made a now infamous call to Gülen, who is in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania. Erdoğan called for an “end to Gülen’s longing” and asked him to return to his home country.

According to Ünal, this was never a sincere invitation. Calling people who applauded Erdoğan’s request in a standing ovation “thousands of idiots,” Ünal said that unlike that crowd, the people who saw the beginning of the antagonism that emerged between Erdoğan and Gülen realized that the invitation “cornered” Gülen. Ünal termed Erdoğan’s insincere call “a maneuver of political genius” while admitting Erdoğan’s hypocrisy.

Following the massive corruption investigations of 2013 that implicated Erdoğan’s family, Turkey’s then prime minister accused Gülen of plotting a coup against his government. Hours after Turkey’s foiled coup in July, Erdoğan also declared Gülen the mastermind of the coup plot despite the lack of credible evidence.

An even more extensive witch-hunt against Gülen sympathizers has been ongoing since July 15.

Source: Turkish Minute , August 25, 2016

Tags: | | | |


Related News

Slandering Turkish schools is treason according to well-known politician

In an interview with the Cihan news agency, Durak showed reaction to Erdoğan’s order to the ambassadors and he visited some of the Turkish schools in foreign countries. “Children of prime ministers and presidents and high-level bureaucrats are sent to these schools opened in Africa and many parts of the world… Many significant people are given education in these schools. I am of the opinion denouncing these schools to the ambassadors instead of supporting them is equal to treason,” said Durak.

Gulen Movement, civilian governments and the AK Party

The Gulen movement’s understanding of politics and the political process differentiate it from the military and bureaucratic elite. Its main political objective is to transform society by raising the moral consciousness of individuals. By raising moral consciousness, the movement hopes to cleanse the bureaucracy of widespread corruption, increase the efficiency and transparency of state institutions, reinvigorate public work ethic to serve the people in order to enhance the legitimacy of the state, and create opportunity spaces for marginalized sectors of the Anatolian population.

Very bad things are happening in Turkey

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, defining it as a parallel state, gravely insults the Hizmet movement and Fethullah Gülen. It is our right to expect some decency in his style given that he is the prime minister of all in this country. We feel sorry because this attitude is not embracive, this attitude is not fair and this attitude is not legal.

PM Erdoğan continues with insults, threats against Hizmet movement

Erdoğan put the blame on the “parallel state,” claiming that the whole thing was a plot against the government. Instead of explaining why manager of public bank Halkbank had $4.5 million placed in shoeboxes and why son of former minister of interior, had TL 1.5 million ($0.7 million) in safety boxes in his house when police arrived to take them under custody.

UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing on Gülen and the Hizmet Movement

The UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee is examining the bilateral relationship between the UK and Turkey, focusing on rights and freedoms as well as how Turkish foreign and security policies relate to those of the UK. The inquiry is ongoing.

Turkish business suffers under Erdogan’s post-coup Gulen purge

Critics of the ruling AKP expect it to sell Gulen-linked companies to government allies in the business world at a large discount. In mid-October the AKP-linked Metro Holding applied to the TMSF to acquire all of Koza Ipek Holding’s shares. Akin Ipek, the fugitive former owner of the conglomerate, asked on Twitter how Koza Ipek’s $600 million in cash and $20 billion in mining assets could be acquired by a comparatively unimpressive entity. Metro Holding’s capital comes to just over $95 million.

Latest News

Turkish inmate jailed over alleged Gülen links dies of heart attack in prison

Message of Condemnation and Condolences for Mass Shooting at Bondi Beach, Sydney

Media executive Hidayet Karaca marks 11th year in prison over alleged links to Gülen movement

ECtHR faults Turkey for convictions of 2,420 applicants over Gülen links in follow-up to 2023 judgment

New Book Exposes Erdoğan’s “Civil Death Project” Targeting the Hizmet Movement

European Human Rights Treaty Faces Legal And Political Tests

ECtHR rejects Turkey’s appeal, clearing path for retrials in Gülen-linked cases

Erdoğan’s Civil Death Project’ : The ‘politicide’ spanning more than a decade

Fethullah Gülen’s Vision and the Purpose of Hizmet

In Case You Missed It

The Gulen Movement is not a cult or terrorist group

Hizmet Movement blog now available in Portuguese and Arabic

The cleric next door: Pocono neighbors weigh in on Fethullah Gülen, the man Turkey wants back

Turkish high-schooler commits suicide after father was dismissed under emergency rules

Father says wife, 11-month-old son under arrest despite medical problems

Afghan journalists complain about Western coverage of their country

Kimse Yok Mu presents gifts to 8,000 children in Diyarbakır

Copyright 2026 Hizmet News